THE BOSTON MAYOR’S race drew national coverage, with stories appearing everywhere from the New York Times and Washington Post to the PBS NewsHour. The outsized attention was squarely focused on the historic field of candidates: five major contenders, all of whom were people of color and four of whom were women, in a city with […]
News Analysis
Posted inPolitics
Mayoral debate more talking points than testy
SOME WERE EXPECTING fireworks, but what we saw was more often a display of sparklers. The five major candidates for mayor of Boston squared off Wednesday night in a televised debate less than a week before voters will narrow the field to two finalists. The hour-long session on NBC10 Boston gave voters a chance to […]
Posted inEducation
An education ‘he-cession’
THE PANDEMIC HAS walloped women economically, giving rise to the term “she-cession” to describe the financial fallout from COVID that has disproportionately hit them. Playing out much more quietly has been a long-running education “he-cession,” a growing gender gap in educational attainment that the pandemic appears to have accelerated. The latest numbers on higher education […]
Posted inEnvironment
Why Ida brought record rainfall to the Northeast
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. RECORD DOWNPOURS FROM Hurricane Ida overwhelmed cities across the Northeast on September 1, hitting some with more than 3 inches of rain an hour. Water poured into subway stations in New York City, and streets flooded up to the rooftops of cars in Philadelphia. The […]
Posted inPolitics
The Sesame Street guide to the Boston mayor’s race
RUNNING FOR MAYOR of Boston is not child’s play, but a familiar jingle from a long-running children’s television show provides a useful template for considering how the candidates are positioning themselves to gain traction with the preliminary election less than two weeks away. A recurring feature on “Sesame Street,” used to help children understand how […]
Posted inCriminal Justice
RFK assassin’s parole recommendation ignites passions in divided family
MOST OF THOSE with first-hand memories of his assassination have probably reached initial eligibility for Social Security. But 53 years after Robert F. Kennedy was gunned down in a Los Angeles hotel, his murder is back in the news — and it is putting a fresh spotlight on divisions in a family that has repeatedly […]
Posted inNews Analysis
Moulton stirs the pot — again
AS A MARINE platoon leader in Iraq, Seth Moulton understood the discipline of the military chain of command as well as anyone. As a congressman with a healthy mix of ambition and an independent streak as wide as an eight-lane highway, he has become a master of disruption, exercising with abandon the free rein that […]
Posted inHealth Care
What does full FDA approval of Pfizer vaccine mean?
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article here. THIRTY PERCENT of unvaccinated American adults say they’re waiting for the COVID-19 vaccines currently authorized for emergency use to be officially approved by the US Food and Drug Administration. On Monday, the FDA granted that approval for those […]
Posted inNews Analysis, Politics
Baker plays catch-up on vaccines, masks
CHARLIE BAKER has fashioned a Teflon political brand by bringing a drama-averse, middle-of-the-road bearing to issues that often incite passions and polarization. That approach seems closely tied to his persistent high favorability polling, projecting an image of the state’s two-term governor as someone operating above the partisan fray. But sometimes that approach comes off more […]
Posted inNews Analysis
Share of White residents shrinking across Mass.
STATE HOUSE NEWS SERVICE THE 2020 DECENNIAL US Census painted a portrait of a diversifying Massachusetts, and those changes stretched far beyond the state’s burgeoning urban centers to touch nearly every single municipality from Salisbury to Sheffield. Every single city and town in the Bay State except for one saw its share of white residents […]